


Sickness

by totalizzyness



Series: 00Q Prompts [9]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: M/M, Prompt Fic, Sickfic, Worried!Bond, anorexic!Q
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-20
Updated: 2012-11-20
Packaged: 2017-11-19 03:46:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/568731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/totalizzyness/pseuds/totalizzyness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>I know it's a bit dark and sad, but a self harming/eating disorder Q and Bond finds out. Preferably if Q does something and faints at work or something</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sickness

**Author's Note:**

> I’m sorry if this is a bit iffy, it’s a sensitive subject and I wasn’t sure how to properly approach it.

Bond sat staring at the crossword on his lap, tapping his pen against the table, stumped by four down. He was waiting for Q at a small cafe four blocks from headquarters. Q was late, which was, annoyingly, a common occurrence. He’d get caught up in his work and lose track of time and Bond often found himself waiting from anything from two to four hours for him to turn up. The things James Bond put up with for love.  
  
He picked up his phone, checking the time. Fifteen minutes late. Sighing, he fired off a quick text, reminding Q he had somewhere to be. Q responded almost instantly.  
  
 _ **“**_ _ **I know, I’m sorry. On my way, be there in five.”**_  
  
He smiled, twenty minutes was definitely better than four hours. Five minutes later, a dishevelled, windswept Q rushed towards Bond, papers sticking out of his satchel slung over his shoulder. He slumped down in the seat opposite, letting out a loud sigh.  
  
“I apologise for being late, one of the interns managed to set fire to something supposed to be fire resistant.”  
  
Bond smiled, reaching across the table, covering Q’s hand with his own. “It’s okay, I’m used to waiting on you.”  
  
Q frowned. “Sorry.”  
  
“Don’t worry about it.”  
  
The waitress wandered over, smiling sweetly at the couple. “Can I get you anything?”  
  
Q let out a long sigh, pushing his hair from his face. “A cup of Earl Gray, please. Breakfast.”  
  
The waitress nodded. “Anything else?”  
  
“Do you not want some food? You haven’t eaten,” Bond said, pushing the menu across the table. Q shook his head.  
  
“I’m not hungry, just the tea, please.”  
  
Bond frowned, waiting for the waitress to leave them alone. “Q, you need to eat.”  
  
“I’ll eat when I get back. Honestly James, I’m fine.”  
  
“You’re a twig.”  
  
“Please, just leave it, James.”  
  
Bond nodded reluctantly, paying attention to how thin Q’s wrists were as he pushed his glasses back up his nose. He worried about his boyfriend. He used to think he was just thin because he was so busy, so integrated in his work he just forgot to eat. But it was becoming more and more apparent Q made no actual attempt to eat. They’d had a weekend off together and Q had only eaten two apples and two bites of a sandwich Bond had made for himself, as well as too many cups of tea.  
  
“So… How’s paid time off?” Q smiled, reaching across the table to take Bond’s newspaper. Bond smiled, passing over his pen too.  
  
“Dull. Lonely. Dull.”  
  
“You need a hobby that isn’t hunting and killing international terrorists.”  
  
“Well I tried to take up crochet but I lost one of my needles in the chest of an international terrorist.”  
  
Q laughed, scribbling down the answer to seven across. “Knitting was always a lethal hobby. How about trainspotting?”  
  
“No thank you.”  
  
Bond reached across the table, taking Q’s hand in his, rubbing his thumb over the thin wrist, feeling his pulse throb underneath. Q quirked a small smile at him, stroking a finger across his arm.  
  
After their café date, they went their separate ways, Bond going back to his flat, Q back to headquarters. The moment he got in, Bond pulled out his phone, pulling up Eve’s number.  
  
“You’re supposed to be taking time off to readjust,” she said by way of a greeting. Bond laughed.  
  
“I’m very readjusted. I need a favour.”  
  
“No.”  
  
“It’s nothing big.”  
  
Eve sighed. “I’ll decide on whether it’s ‘big’ or not.”  
  
“I need the CCTV footage of Q’s office.”  
  
Eve said nothing for a few moments. “Um… why?”  
  
“Just do this for me? I need to check something.”  
  
“Is something wrong?”  
  
“No, it’s nothing to worry about.”  
  
“Does he know you’re asking for this footage?”  
  
Bond sighed, collapsing down on the sofa. “Do you think I’d be asking you for it if he did?”  
  
“Trouble in paradise?”  
  
“Just do it, please.”  
  
Eve sighed. “Fine. I’ll have them sent to you A-S-A-P. If he asks, I’m not involved.”  
  
“That’s fine. Thanks.”  
  
They hung up, Bond pulling the laptop over to him. A few moments later, he had the CCTV files sitting in front of him. He nipped to the kitchen, brewing a pot of coffee before settling in for the evening, poring through hours and hours of footage.  
  
Two hours in, Q had only drank three cups of tea. Seven hours in and four more cups of tea. Eleven hours, Q ate an orange. Twenty-five hours, and many cups of tea, Q ate an apple. Forty hours in, an intern brought him some food. Ten minutes later it was pushed in to the bin beside his desk.  
  
Bond sighed, fast-forwarding through the footage, making notes of how much Q was eating. After one week, Q had barely eaten enough food to constitute one meal. He wondered how the boy genius was still standing.  
  
After two weeks of footage, Bond stopped, dropping his head to his hands, letting out a long sigh. He thought back to conversations he’d had with Q; about how he hated his body. Bond remembered jokingly offering to train him and help him build up some muscle. Q had given him a hollow smile in return. He recalled and incident finding Q in front of the bathroom mirror, grabbing the skin of his stomach, muttering something about being fat.   
  
“Goddamnit,” Bond muttered, rubbing a hand over his face. “How didn’t I realise?”  
  
He brought up his internet browser, searching for “anorexia”. He could feel his pulse quicken as he read through the signs and symptoms as they described Q quite succinctly. He never ate, he was cold all the time, his skin was sallow, he was tired most of the time. Bond felt like he’d failed him; Q spent so much time looking out for him, keeping him safe and Bond hadn’t even realised despite the signs being right there.  
  
He reached for his phone, ringing Eve again.  
  
“Now what? Find something you didn’t like? Is he cheating on you with a robot-girl of his making?”  
  
Bond let out a weak chuckle. “I wish. Um… How does one go about staging an intervention?”  
  
“Intervention?! For what?”  
  
“Just, please, Eve.”  
  
Eve let out a sad sigh. “I’ll get on to it, send you the information I find.”  
  
“Thanks.”  
  
“And Bond, I’m sure everything’s fine.”  
  
“Yeah…”  
  
He hung up, dropping the phone on to the sofa behind him, throwing his head back.  
  
He was woken several hours later by his phone ringing. He raised his head groggily, looking around the room. The clock told him it had just gone three. The phone was still ringing. Sighing, he raised it to his ear.  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Bond!”  
  
“Eve? Has that information come through?”  
  
“You need to go to Gordon Hospital.”  
  
Bond jumped from the sofa, grabbing his coat, already in action mode. “Why? What’s happening?”  
  
“Q, he collapsed.”  
  
Bond stopped in his tracks. “What?! Fuck! fuck fuck…”  
  
Pulling on his coat, slamming the door behind him, he ran out of the flat, not listening to Eve babble down the phone at him.  
  
“Paramedics said something about him being exhausted or something. I mean, I know he over-works but…”  
  
“I’d better have clearance to barge right in and demand to see him.”  
  
“I’ll get right on it.”  
  
He hung up, shoving the phone in to his pocket, hailing down a taxi. The drive to the hospital was agonisingly slow, Bond’s hands trembling, he felt his heart thudding violently in his chest. He couldn’t recall feeling so nervous, so heart-broken. Q could easily slip in to a coma and never wake; he had no idea how long Q had been suffering, he’d been a skinny little thing when they’d met.  
  
He didn’t want to lose Q; sure he’d been in love before, but with Q it was different. He could easily keep up with Bond, for any smart remark Bond had, Q had one fully prepared. He was smart, a genius, and funny, and most of all he was beautiful. Not just aesthetically; he had a good heart. James had never felt more loved than when he was with Q.  
  
He felt tears welling up in his eyes as the taxi pulled up outside the hospital. Wiping them with the back of his sleeve, he threw several notes at the cabbie and bolted inside, running up to one of the Q branch interns he recognised.  
  
“Miss Moneypenny told me to tell you he’s on the third floor, room E2.”  
  
Bond nodded, bypassing the lifts and heading for the stairs, running up the three flights and down the corridor. A nurse was stood outside the room, trying to stop him barging in.  
  
“Move.”  
  
The nurse crossed her arms over her chest. “He needs to be left to recooperate.”  
  
“I’ll ask you one more time. I don’t want to assault you but I bloody will. Move.”  
  
“The doctor said-”  
  
Bond shoved the nurse out of the way, throwing the door open. Q was lying lifeless in the hospital bed, tubes coming out of his mouth and arm, a ventilator breathing for him. The cardiograph showed a steady pulse. He collapsed down in to the chair beside his bed, grabbing his hand between both of his.  
  
“Goddamnit, Q.”  
  
He pressed his lips to Q’s boney fingers, his eyelids falling closed. He felt a tear slide down his cheek. He heard the door click open, footsteps coming to a halt.  
  
“Mr Bond, I assume?”  
  
Bond nodded, not taking his eyes from Q.  
  
“I’m Doctor Hayes. Your uh, partner collapsed from fatigue, due to his long work hours and he doesn’t seem to be eating properly. His nutrient levels are worryingly low-”  
  
“He doesn’t eat,” Bond sighed. “He has… He’s anorexic. I think.”  
  
“You think?”  
  
“We’ve never talked about it. I just figured it out today.”  
  
“I’m sure you’ve had a long day, Mr Bond. I’ll just let you know he’ll be okay. We’re feeding his via IV, he should be awake tomorrow afternoon. We’ve caught this early.”  
  
Bond nodded, rubbing his thumb over Q’s wrist, feeling a faint pulse. He heard the footsteps shuffling away, the door clicking shut behind him. Already knackered from his stressful day, Bond let himself fall asleep, hands clamped tightly around Q’s.  
  
He woke up to someone shaking him gently. He cracked his eyes open to see Eve smiling sadly at him, holding out a cup of cheap machine coffee.  
  
“How are you holding up?”  
  
James frowned, sitting back in his seat, wincing at the sound of his bones cracking. “Not very well.”  
  
“The doctor said he’s doing well.”  
  
Bond hummed passively, taking a sip of the coffee. “He just… Why didn’t he tell me?”  
  
“James, be honest. How many personal things do you tell him? You didn’t even tell him you broke your collar bone.”  
  
“But… This is serious!”  
  
Eve reached over, squeezing his knee. “It’s not easy telling someone your weaknesses. Eating disorders, mental disorders, most people just struggle through and don’t tell a soul until it consumes them.”  
  
“He can’t die on me. He just can’t.”  
  
“He won’t. Who else is going to kick your arse in to shape?”  
  
Bond let out a weak chuckle, raking his eyes over Q’s body. “I don’t recommend falling in love, Miss Moneypenny.”  
  
“Come on, you need to eat something.”  
  
Bond let himself be heaved out of the plastic hospital chair and led down to the cafeteria. He said nothing as he mindlessly shoved food in his mouth, his mind focused on Q lying in the hospital bed. After his bland meal of hospital food, Bond made his way back up to Q’s room, prepared to spend all his time at his bedside until he got better.  
  
After several hours of terrible machine coffee and nurses badgering him, Q was still unconscious. When he demanded to know why, the nurses shrugged, explaining recovery takes time. He sat with his hand clasped tightly around Q’s, only believing his heart was beating when he could feel it himself. He reached up and pushed a tuft of hair back from Q’s face, stroking his cheek with his thumb.  
  
“Come on, Q. Wake up… This time yesterday you were calling me an idiot for not knowing what a low frequency signal is,” he chuckled, cupping Q’s cheek in his palm. “You’ve got to wake up.”  
  
The room remained silent, Bond staring up at Q’s face, waiting for his eyes to open. He needed to see his blue-green eyes. He needed to know he was okay. He needed Q to keep him grounded, to tell him when he was being an arse.  
  
The day dragged on with no change to Q’s condition. The doctor came along, giving Bond an explanation as to why he may not wake up any time soon, saying they were just playing the waiting game. Eve arrived after, putting a comforting hand on Bond’s shoulder.  
  
“Go back home. Get some proper sleep, I’ll ring you if there’s any change to his condition.”  
  
Bond shook his head. “I’m not leaving his side.”  
  
“He’ll be fine, James. He’s in good hands.”  
  
“I want to be there when he wakes.”  
  
“James, you’ll be no use to him if you exhaust yourself, you’ll find yourself in a bed here yourself.”  
  
Bond let out a resigned sigh, rubbing a hand over his face. “Fine. The moment, anything happens. He twitches his pinky, you ring me.”  
  
Eve smiled meekly. “I promise. Go. Look after yourself.”  
  
Bond collapsed down on the sofa when he got home, falling asleep instantly. He woke ten hours later, the first thing he did was check his phone. No new messages or missed calls. He huffed out a deep sigh, dragging himself to the bathroom. After a shower and proper meal, James felt refreshed and relaxed enough to go back to the hospital.  
  
Q’s condition still hadn’t changed. He sighed dejectedly, collapsing down in the seat beside his bed.  
  
It wasn’t for another two days until Q finally woke. His pulse quickened, Bond’s head shooting up.  
  
“Q?”  
  
Q let out a pained gasp, his throat sore from the respirator that had been removed the previous day. Bond jumped from his seat, looming over the quartermaster, cupping his cheek.  
  
“Q?”  
  
“James?”  
  
His eyelids slowly fluttered open, taking a while to focus on his surroundings.  
  
“Oh thank God. Damnit, Q!”  
  
“Am I… in the hospital?”  
  
“You collapsed, exhaustion, your body was running on reserve.”  
  
Q raised a weary hand to rub his head, squinting up at Bond. “James, I-”  
  
“You stupid idiot, Q. You had me worried sick.”  
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
Bond let out a lengthy sigh, rubbing the back of his head. “Q… Were you ever going to tell me?”  
  
Q frowned. “Tell you what?”  
  
“About your eating habits? Or should I say, your lack of?”  
  
“James-”  
  
“I mean, don’t you trust me? Did you think I wouldn’t understand? I’d stop loving you?!”  
  
Q sighed, reaching out to take Bond’s hand. “I don’t know. I… How would I tell you? How do you tell anyone that you have an eating disorder?”  
  
“I wish I’d figured it out earlier.”  
  
“No, James, it’s not your fault.”  
  
“Just…” Bond hunched over Q again, taking his face between his hands, littering it with kisses. “Don’t ever do that again. Promise me you’ll try and get better. I can’t go through this again.”  
  
Q nodded, leaning up to press his lips against Bond’s. “You’ll stay with me?”  
  
“I’m never leaving you, you idiot.”

**Author's Note:**

> Also posted on my Tumblr; [[link](http://the-nerdinator.tumblr.com/post/36155513128/im-sorry-if-this-is-a-bit-iffy-its-a-sensitive)]


End file.
